


The Little Things

by RandomReader13



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is Robin, Open Ending, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23569138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomReader13/pseuds/RandomReader13
Summary: They had a code, a way for Jason to quietly alert Bruce when he was upset or scared or overwhelmed. Bruce had never expected to see it again.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd
Comments: 37
Kudos: 728





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> This fulfills my [bingo square](https://theawkwardvirgin.tumblr.com/post/613585977520340992/prompts-are-open) Traditions for found family bingo  
> This universe is a fun mix of the comic and the movie and just me doing what I like.

Bruce would freely admit that he was not prepared for Jason. He wasn’t sure anyone really could be. Jason was a mess of contradictions. He was kind and expressive and breathed love with every exuberant gesture and every tripped-over syllable. He was angry and closed off and screamed hate with fists and thrown objects and miserable tears. Bruce didn’t blame him. He had seen what the streets did. How could he blame a child for doing what it took to survive, for turning anger into his safety net, hurtful words into a shield? How could he see the staplers and silverware and books as anything other than a desperate child’s attempts to save himself from more pain, more betrayal?

So Bruce dodged the flung knick-knacks, gently deflected the wild punches, dried a too-small face of too many tears, and thought. Bruce was good at thinking and despite what the criminals of Gotham might think, his brain was his biggest weapon.

“What if,” he said one night, one arm gently draped around Jason’s rigid figure, “we have a code.”

“A code?” Jason rubbed at his red eyes.

“Yes. A signal. Something that says,” Bruce twirled one finger in the air, pulling Jason closer with the other arm, “‘I need backup’. So if you’re upset or scared or need help I can know.”

Jason sniffled loudly, sagging into his side. “What kinda code.”

Bruce hummed. “I was thinking a gesture. Something easy.”

Eventually, they settled on three taps with the middle finger. It satisfied Bruce’s desire for discretion and Jason thought the use of the middle finger was funny in almost any situation.

Jason used the code a lot, in the months after that. They could be doing anything: watching a movie, attending a gala, eating a meal. It became instinct for Bruce to glance at Jason’s hands, to check if his son needed him, and if the way Jason sometimes looked surprised when Bruce intervened in a situation was any indication, it had become instinct for him as well. As time went on, the code was used less and less, as Jason’s trust in him grew and they learned how to bridge the gap with words.

Then Garzonas happened, and the manor was tense and silent as Bruce agonized over what to do. Jason wouldn’t answer when he asked, simply screamed that Bruce didn’t trust him if he had to ask that question, and that just made the corner of his mind that whispered in gravel and darkness grow more suspicious. He didn’t want to believe it, but he didn’t want to dismiss it if it were true. He couldn’t let Jason slip away from him, couldn’t lose him to the darkness that tugged at their heels every night. His beautiful son deserved to live in the sun, not be dragged down by the weight of blood on his shoulders.

He was so distracted, he forgot to check Jason’s hands.

For years afterward, Bruce wondered if he had missed it, if in those last moments before he disappeared to chase the Joker and Jason followed a water-logged initial to his death, his son had reached out to him, had asked him for help in the only way he could.

Bruce didn’t teach the code to Tim.

* * *

The boy had many quirks, even in his comatose state. Talia did not understand how her father could be so blind as to miss the person hiding behind those blank eyes. Jason’s body was a mass of sensations and impressions, emotions flickering and dying faster than a candle in the wind, but she had keen eyes. She watched and reported and learned. He would pull his hands into his sleeves when he felt safe and couldn’t sleep unless he was curled into a tight ball. His head would tilt to the side when he wanted to be read to, and his footsteps would change from shuffling to carefully silent when he was afraid.

There was one tick she could not decipher, though. The boy was constantly twitching his finger. Now, if it had been all of them, a drumming motion perhaps, or one reminiscent of a keyboard, she would have accepted it as a sort of stimming, simply his body’s need for movement in an otherwise stationary being. But it was not that, it was one finger, the middle on his right hand. It was constantly tapping in intervals of three. It did not matter what they were doing. She had watched him tap away in between attacks during a sparring session, he tapped when she sat with him, he tapped when she took him on walks.

At first she thought it was an attempt at morse code, and she had been so elated she had informed her father immediately; a mistake as it turned out since the tapping could not possibly mean anything in particular. It was too regular, too obsessive. If it meant something, it would have ceased at some point during their time together. She had tried plying him with different foods and clothes and soft objects. Usually that was enough to stop his small gestures of malcontent, but the tapping persisted. Eventually Talia simply accepted it. If he ever woke up, it might even be allowed to stay, unlike his other signals which he would need to be broken of. Having a movement that might be a signal but was actually useless could be beneficial if the enemy were so distracted trying to determine what he was signaling that they gave him a chance to carry out his mission more efficiently. She had certainly spent enough time trying to interpret the movement.

In the end it didn’t matter. Once he was submerged in the Pit and she showed him the pictures of the new Robin the tick disappeared. Talia chalked it up to him taking his training -- and subsequent breaking of tells -- more seriously, now that he had a real goal he was working towards.

* * *

Batman raced over the rooftops, leaping off one roof before his grapple even connected to the next. The suspicion that had been growing for weeks had not been laid to rest by his visits to Zatanna, Oliver, even Clark. None of them had answers for him, none of them could tell him one way or another if he was insane or if it was the universe that was losing grip on rationality. He didn’t know for sure, and Batman remembered caution, that this was a dangerous criminal that had been slaughtering his way through Gotham’s underworld, but Bruce tore through the night sky towards the sounds of explosions and gunshots and blaring car horns. If there was even the smallest chance, he would not risk it. He would not be late again.

By the time he arrived, the Red Hood was pinned down by Hyena, razor sharp claws pressed against the gap between helmet and chestplate. Batman paused to observe for a split second before Bruce emptied his tranquilizers into Hyena’s back.

“What the hell took you so long?” Red Hood demanded, kicking Hyena off of himself. Bruce’s heart jumped in his chest. He had been expecting him. Why would a crime lord be expecting help from Batman?

“Shut up and fight,” Batman growled, fixating on the “crime lord” part of that thought.

Red Hood snorted and threw himself at Captain Nazi, bullets flying harmlessly through the air. Batman followed, flinging explosives. The bullets might bounce harmlessly off, but the explosives would at least slow the super soldier down. The way Red Hood moved was familiar, almost painfully so. Still, it didn’t point conclusively to the impossible. Bruce trained with the League of Assassins for years and it was a big part of his style, Red Hood could simply be another trainee of theirs. Batman dodged the telephone pole Captain Nazi tried to bring down on his head. The League could possibly explain things, even if Zatanna had said the Lazarus Pits could only restore the living. There were just too many coincidences to let it go.

Batman was a little too slow to dodge the next strike, and Captain Nazi clipped his shoulder with one giant fist, sending him spinning into a wall. He regained his feet just in time to see Red Hood be snagged by the back of his leather jacket -- this is why their capes had emergency releases, Bruce thought exasperatedly -- and slammed into the ground until he stopped moving. Captain Nazi pulled the limp figure against his chest, wrapping one arm around his neck, the other gripping the other side of the red helmet. Bruce couldn’t breathe. Captain Nazi was strong enough to go against Captain Marvel, he could snap Red Hood’s neck like a twig. Bruce wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he learned that the universe really had given him an impossible gift by pulling the helmet off a corpse.

Batman pulled a gun from one of his pouches and leveled it at Captain Nazi. He had used all of his tranquilizers, but this specially-crafted tazer had enough juice to level even Captain Nazi. “Let him go.”

“A gun?” the man sneered, grip tightening. Bruce’s stomach dropped. “You’re going to shoot me?”

“Probably a tazer,” Red Hood said, making both Captain Nazi and Batman start. “I had a similar idea.”

Bruce barely had time to be relieved that Red Hood hadn’t been killed by the repeated impacts with the ground before the crime lord jammed a tazer into Captain Nazi’s cybernetic eyes. The super soldier screamed, hands flying up to his eyes before his body went slack, arms falling limp by his sides before he toppled over to the ground. Smoke rose from his blackened face.

“No!” Bruce yelled, taking a useless step forward.

“Yes,” Red Hood said, standing up. He was favoring his right leg, one arm held tightly to his side. Broken ribs, at the very least. “Be happy I only killed the nazi.”

“This needs to end,” Bruce said, taking another step forward.

Red Hood snorted. “We’re not even close to the end.” A small motion drew Batman’s attention. Red Hood was reaching for- nothing. Only one finger was moving, the middle one. Three taps on the thigh. Bruce’s heart stopped. All the uncertainties, all the impossibilities, none of it mattered any more.

“Jason,” he gasped.

Red Hood stiffened. “Wha- how-”

Bruce surged forward. “Jason.” His heart was soaring, an uncontrollable smile stretching across his face. He was met with the barrel of a gun.

“How the fuck did you figure it out?” Jason demanded, backing up. “It isn’t _time_ yet.” Three taps to the thigh.

“Jason.” Bruce felt dizzy. “Please. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help!” Tap tap tap. “I’m going to save Gotham like you never could!”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” Bruce said, reaching helplessly towards Jason. “I’m so, so sorry Jason. Please let me save you now.”

“I don’t need to be saved by you! You’re too late!”

His heart was being ripped out of his chest. “I know, I know I am. Can I at least try?”

Jason’s back hit the wall and his aim stuttered. Tap tap tap. “Go away,” he rasped. “Go away, it isn’t- it’s all _wrong_. It wasn’t supposed to go like this!” His voice was speeding up, the way it always did when he was panicking, and Bruce longed to wrap his arms around his son, but Batman surged forward from the back of his mind, reminding him sharply of the gun less than an inch from his chest.

“Jason,” he breathed. “Please put the gun down. Come home.”

“That isn’t my home anymore!” The modulation on the helmet couldn’t hide the way Jason’s voice was shaking. “Have you _forgotten_ what I just did?” He couldn’t have if he tried; the stench of burnt flesh was still hanging in the air.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t-!” Jason broke off, sounding a bit hysterical. “The fuck you mean it doesn’t matter?!”

“You are my _son_ , Jason.” Tap tap tap. “And you’re alive.” His voice broke on the word and Jason flinched. “That’s all that matters.”

Jason was breathing hard, chest heaving under his jacket. It must have been agony on his ribs, but he didn’t seem to feel it. “No,” he breathed. “No, no you don’t care.”

Bruce opened his mouth to protest that of _course_ he cared, that he didn’t know when he had ever cared about anything as much as Jason being alive. He didn’t get the chance to, the hand that had been tapping that cry for help embedding a tranquilizer into the elbow joint of his armor. Bruce’s vision immediately turned wavy, and when he woke up with Alfred calling in his ear, Jason was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in more stuff like this, check out [my Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theawkwardvirgin) I don't post all of these bingo stories on here and prompts are currently open!


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